This morning I made the long trek from Camden County all the way to Morris Plains for the pleasure of meeting with Assemblyman and NJGOP Chairman Jay Webber, who happens to be a good friend to this blog. The 7:30AM breakfast was a small invitation event for supporters and allies as somewhat of a ‘thank you’ from the Chairman for everyone’s hard work and support. Assemblyman Webber gave remarks about the state of the GOP in New Jersey, along with a brief recap of just how far our party has come since the disaster that was the election of 2008.
Being a Republican in a state like New Jersey, a state everyone in the media insists is so blue, it is easy to get discouraged and forget the progress that is made to actually bring responsible government here. Webber’s presentation was backed up by a powerpoint that showed numerous charts and graphs that outlined, in hard numbers, the past strides and coming trends that we conservatives can look forward to in the coming years.
For example, the Chairman showed a slide that highlighted the shrinking gap between Democrats and Republicans for Countywide Offices throughout the state.
In the picture above, as I am sure you inferred, the red bar represents the good guys, blue bar represents the bad guys. That chart only goes back as far as 2007, and since then the difference has shrunk to 108 Democrat county officers compared to 99 for the GOP. An almost even split like that does not sound like a blue state, and the trend is incredibly encouraging. This year Republicans picked up 11 countywide seats and lost only 1 (who happened to be a Democrat turned Republican at the last minute Sheriff).
Webber went on to tout the gains made in this years election, specifically pointing to the 3rd District victory for Jon Runyan as a must win for the NJGOP that panned out perfectly. Webber was also clear that eventhough Adler has lost, he is refusing to back down on his FEC complaints regarding Peter DeStefano, the fake Tea Party plant who still received over 3,000 votes after he was outed as a fraud.
Another important race for Webber was the Anna Little race against entrenched liberal Democrat Frank Pallone. Pallone has almost never taken less than 60% of the vote during his long tenure in the Congress, and the Little campaign lost by only 11%. While in some districts that is a huge margin, when dealing with Pallone’s usual 30% advantage, and remembering that Little was outspent more than 3 to 1 and ran a mostly grassroots campaign, the achievement is most impressive. Webber said that Little’s campaign showed what could be done when the NJGOP, the Governor, and the Tea Party work together to support conservative, but still electable, candidates.
Finally, the Assemblyman talked about what I considered to be the most important topic of the morning: Redistricting. As you know, Webber was asked to Chair the GOP team for redistricting this year and selected his members last week. According to the Chairman, redistricting is the only major hurdle to the GOP taking a majority in Trenton. The minority leaders in the Assembly and the Senate have literally been working for two years on this issue in preparation for the next few months, and the NJGOP is taking it very seriously.
One slide showed the electoral map of New Jersey from 2009, the current map in 2011, and the potential 2012 map based on Republican successes in 2010 and hopeful redistricting plans. Essentially, Democrats would effectively be held to six counties (unfortunately one of them being where I call home). Much of this outcome springs from the rise of South Jersey Republicans. Webber insisted that continuing to win in “Steve Sweeney’s backyard” would be crucial to regaining the majority and ensuring that New Jersey has fiscally responsible government for the future.
If this event and speech showed anything, its that 2009 was just the beginning of a political trend that can only be read as a Republican resurgence in the Garden State. It was not just a victory of Chris Christie over Jon Corzine, it was a conservative victory that has only continued to gain steam thanks to the strong leadership and principled stances of many elected officials in the NJGOP.
Other Highlights from the Remarks:
1. Webber has not taken taxpayer funded health benefits since he became an assemblyman in 2007. He believes this is part of the meaning of public service and wants to see more reform to take excessive benefits away from part time elected officials.
2. In each state that Governor Christie campaigned in during the midterm elections, he required a meeting with the state chamber of commerce or key business leaders in order to try and bring more businesses to New Jersey. Even when he was out campaigning, he was working to fix our economy.
3. The NJ Supreme Court is a huge priority to Governor Christie, even if it is not in the forefront right now. Steve Sweeney is holding up the nomination process for Anne Patterson because it would be nearly impossible to concoct a sound argument for voting the highly qualified nominee down. Sweeney’s personal friendship with former Justice Wallace is getting in the way of his constitutional duty to move the nomination process along. Changing the Supreme Court is going to be a part of Governor Christie’s lasting legacy.
